Guilford L. Jones, III

Guilford Lavendar Jones, III was born March 2, 1944 (that’s right … his father’s birthday) and had two children by Willedee Thomas of Pasadena, Texas: Rusty and Melissa (deceased, 1990). They were divorced in 1983. He also has two children adopted as adults, children of his 2nd wife Peggy Bush Jones, Patti Kelly-Jones Cryer (who has two children, Mattie and Tess Cryer) and Sheila Jones (Bullard) Evans who has two children (Davis Bullard and Brooke Bullard). her husband, Tim Evans, live in Georgetown, Texas. Patti and Allen live with their children in Marble Falls, Texas.

Guilford, III (who goes by “Gil”) married Jennifer Lynn (Byrd) Andrews on April 14, 2001. Jennifer has a son, Matthew L.D. Andrews, who is an Air Force officer. As of June 11, 2017 Major Andrews is married to Blythe Boyette and they are stationed in Spain and are enjoying their first-born daughter, Audrey Lynette Andrews.

Early years

I was born during WWII in the Army hospital in Temple, Texas while my father was in the Army. He was station in India for the Burma Campaign and apparently had leave about nine months prior! My earliest memories include living in Boulder City, Nevada with my maternal grandparents (and mom) until dad returned, and then in Austin while he was in law school at UT. Janet is four years younger than I.

We moved to Big Spring, Texas when I started the first grade, and I graduated as a “Steer” from BSHS in 1962. I remember the Salk vaccine and the eventual sugar cube dose against polio and later became a member of Rotary International which (as of 2017) has been instrumental in nearly eradicating polio world-wide. My father, who was always known as “Big Guil” (and me as “Little Gil”) in our references, had just graduated law school and was setting up his law practice.

That was 1950, just as the Texas drought of record began (only to be surpassed in 2011). We lived in a modest house with an unpaved street in front, and a lot of pretty bare ground all about. From spring until well into the fall dust storms would roll through weekly, sometimes lasting for days. The skies would get dark, red and angry, and then the wind came with dust, dirt and grit only seconds behind. Paint would be sand-blasted from the fronts of cars and even chrome-plating (remember chrome bumpers, anyone?) was stripped from bumpers. Mother would clean for hours although she had placed wet, rolled up … anything … in the window sashes and under doors.

My elementary years include overcoming a couple of bullies, one with a bloody nose and the other (BIG 6th grader while I was in the 5th) with the offer of a hank of chain I had scoured from our garage during the lunch hour, having ridden the bicycle home and back to school. I became friends with both of them after the persuasion. I took piano lessons. I recall that being four years, ending by the time I entered the 8th grade. I discovered girls and football about then. I was not too great at football and my record with girls would be spotty over the years. I should have stuck with the piano because apparently I had some talent as I won awards at the annual teachers’ recitals.

Junior High at Runnels (the only Jr. High) was pretty unremarkable. That was just 7th and 8th grades then. I attempted basketball but didn’t have the legs for it and played “at” football, because it was the manly thing to do. I remember a talent contest when Melinda Crocker whistled like a song bird after devouring a mouthful of saltine crackers — not an easy thing to do.

College

I attended THE University. That would be the University of Texas (and now we have to say “at Austin” due to the spread of university tentacles). My original major was electrical engineering which I chose for all the wrong reasons and I switched to accounting in my sophomore year. I say EE for all the wrong reasons as my maternal grandfather was a rather famous civil engineer. During WWII and the construction of Boulder Dam, now named Hoover Dam, he was the head of the Western Division of the Bureau of Reclamation — basically he was the chief engineer in the construction. I had developed an interest in electrical stuff — turns out more an avocational interest. I later became, and at this writing still am an amateur radio operator (KA5GIL).

I pledged KA — Kappa Alpha Order — and enjoyed a great social life at UT via the fraternity. One summer Jerry Reed and I were co-rush captains and had a great summer entertaining rushees and putting on six big parties across the state. Basically full-time partying on someone else’s nickel! One of my strongest memories of college was taking cost accounting in the summer, MWF 7:30AM! to 9:00. That hurt.

My first wife, Willedee (nmn) Thomas, and I met in college and married in January 1966, our last semester at UT. Upon graduation I went to work for Arthur Andersen & Co — the world’s largest international accounting firm — in Houston and she taught school in Pasadena which was her hometown. I soon was in the Navy as Vietnam was heating up and the draft thought me to be perfectly healthy, which I was. The Navy seemed the better choice.

Navy

Navy OCS in Newport, RI between October and March is nobody’s idea of a vacation. It gets cold and snows. After four months plus two more in communications school I was glad to be stationed aboard a ship headed for the South Pacific. The U.S.S. Kitty Hawk (CVA-63), our largest aircraft carrier at the time, headed to Hawaii not long after I joined the ship. Nice. Oh, but then it went on to the South China Sea to support the ground war of the Vietnam “conflict.” I would do two 9-month deployments on the “Hawk” and exited the Navy in November of 1969. I returned to AA&Co. where I would stay to become a Certified Public Accountant (CPA) but in 1971, not feeling satisfied with what I was doing, launched off to law school at UT.

Post-graduate

The University of Texas School of Law gave me a fine education. It was a bit of a blur as by then Willedee and I had two children and not much money. I went to work as a law clerk for the firm of Hilgers, Daugherty, Fielder, Golden and Kuperman. That experience proved invaluable to my start as a lawyer. I graduated with a JD — Doctor of Jurisprudence — in 1973.

(more later)

Professional careers

Public Accounting

Law

Judiciary

Mediation

DNA

Screen shot from my 23 and me DNA test:

Guilford III DNA test from 23andme (ancestry.com)

At http://refer.dna.ancestry.com/s/captainjustice you can get the discount offer.